Bikin' Round' A'Dam
The only way to get around this spider web like city is by bikes. The bike is the ultimate equalizer here. The fancy pants business guy can be riding along side the shlubby college kid on roughly the same type of bike: beat. These bikes are gnarly and about as old as Rembrandts’ paintings. They are heavy, creaky, slow and a bear to wrestle with at every stop light. However, this city was designed with bikes outnumbering cars like 50 to 1. Bikes have their own lanes, turn signals and road rules. At first, it was a bit intimidating getting into traffic with other cyclists, but nobody here rides with an attitude. They all know the limits of their bikes and most people just slowly cruise their way along. I may have elicited whatever “F you” means in Dutch a few times though. Sorry, not from here, just visiting!
Our first adventure on our bikes was to ride over to the Rijks Museum (pronounced: rikes) and check out some of the Dutch Masters. Before I get into what’s inside of the museum, the outside is pretty cool, also. Riding to the museum, you actually ride through a corridor that goes through the museum like a tunnel. It’s still a street, but just for bike and foot traffic. It was really cool and a great entry. Locking our bikes to a railing with the skills of expert riders (kidding, we looked like buffoons and kept getting all twisted up in the bike frames), we made for the entrance. The museum is beautiful and laid out in such an easy to navigate manner, unlike the Louvre. The crowds, like Paris, we very sparse, so seeing Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh without being jostled from all sides was pretty spectacular. There were so many great pieces of art from some of the biggest names in history. It was really great to see so many amazing works.
Rembrandt's "Night Watch" at the Rijks Museum.
Vermeer's "Milk Maid".
We were getting a little museumed out, so we hopped back on our bikes and went to a place for steak and frites. It was very, very good. We had some time to kill before our rental bikes were due back, so we did the sensible thing and rode to a cool beer garden underneath a windmill. It had a totally local feel and not one bit touristy. Amsterdam is full of so many students and workers from all over the world, but everyone just seems to blend it. Hopefully, we did too, but I think my, “Make America Great Again” hat may have gave it away…
Unburdened by our bikes, we made it back to our apartment. After dinner and game planning for the next day, it was off to bed. The next day we checked into our houseboat Airbnb. It was kind of a let down. To me at least. It wasn’t very clean and there were bugs and big spiders everywhere. The host did leave us a bottle of wine as a check in gift, which was nice. However, the guy doesn’t even have a colander in his kitchen. I mean c’mon. He provided bikes for us, which was awesome, so we rode to the Van Gogh Museum. It was very good and not what I was expecting. His letters to his brother were interesting to read. He had a sad life and the museum did a good job with explaining just who he was and not just the crazy ginger who cut off his own ear.
Van Gogh self portrait at his museum.
We rode back to our houseboat in rush hour traffic. Not wanting to get separated, we rode in the slow lane until we made it onto the quiet street along the river and our casa. By now we were getting a real feel for the city. It is incredibly efficient. Even at the restaurants and in lines. People here work really well with each other. It is very interesting to notice. I’m glad we made the decision to stay here longer. The next day we were going up to windmill country!
Evening ride. So lost.
Final Thought:
Riding bikes here has been the first time on this trip where I truly felt the experience of being a local. It was great to get the feel for how things work here. Renting a car is not the same and besides, it is far more dangerous to drive around here than ride your bike!
